Red Alert is six months old today. It began as a project of direct engagement. Politicians talking directly to, and with people about what they believe. Our first post said what we were about.
Being in opposition isn’t easy. It’s difficult for Labour to have its voice heard in the community right now. Red Alert has provided us with a voice, delivered directly, not via the prism of media. We think it’s been worth it. So far. What do you think? And what can we do to improve it?
Here are a few facts on content and traffic:
Number of posts: 879
Number of comments: 13,702
Number of Labour MPs posting on Red Alert: 32 (out of 43)
Unique visits to Red Alert: 192,962
Page views: 479,240 (as of around 10am this morning)
Average time spent on the blog: 3 minutes 54 seconds
MPs with highest number of posts:
Trevor Mallard: 292
Clare Curran: 88
Phil Twyford: 78
Grant Robertson: 74
Chris Hipkins: 61
Interestingly, open source browsers make up a significant percentage of Red Alert readership:
Internet Explorer dominates with 48%
Firefox 32% (open source)
Safari (Apple-based) 13%
Chrome (Google) 5% (open source)
Opera 1.5% (open source)
Our readers span the world. After New Zealand (highest percentage of readership) comes from:
Australia
UK
US
Japan
Canada
Within NZ, our highest regional readership is from:
Auckland
Wellington
Christchurch
Palmerston North
Dunedin
Hamilton
North Shore
Invercargill
Lower Hutt
Nelson
I have to say I was a bit miffed that Dunedin was beaten by Palmerston North! (No offence Iain).
There you have it. Our half birthday. I’m feeling proud of us. Feedback?
Refreshing blog, who’da thought, direct access to elected reps. I commented before on this, Nats own most of the media and Kiwi Blog so who needs a Blue Alert? Not moi anyway.
Hang in Spud, its a long ride being politically aware!
Thanks Tiger Mountain.
@Spud Placing the smiley things into the blog – could be my browser or inability to find a correct button…
If you type the right things and there is a space on either side of the face you’ve typed then they will appear autonmatically, there is no button.
Try it
Type : then type D
You don’t actually see the face until after you hit submit and your comment appears.
I always thought “Blue Rinse” would be a good name for a National Party blog.
@spud
Ohhhh – I get it now – nothing like going slow!
Well done Clare, Trevor and all the other Labour MPs. Always a good read.
@Paul – You’re a man after my own heart
[...] Red Alert’s readership has grown, so have the number of comments. You may have noticed in the six months old today post (from last week) there have been to date almost 14,000 comments. We’ve now exceeded that and [...]
It’s great to be able to get your point across and know it’s being read.
[...] time someone visits Red Alert they usually visit several pages. Our post marking the six month anniversary recorded nearly 200,000 unique visitors, spending an average of 3 minutes and 54 seconds on the [...]